(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital still camera which converts an optical image into a digital electronic signal representative of the image and stores the digital electronic signal, and more particularly to a still camera capable of communicating to a remote site by means of a wireless telephone system.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In the field of digital still cameras, various types of communication of digital electronic image signals have been proposed. One of the typical proposals is to transmit the digital electronic image signal to a remote device, such as a computer, by connecting a digital still camera to a wireless telephone through a MODEM, and transmitting the signal to the remote device connected to a telephone line.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application Nos. 6-133081 and 6-268582 disclose a digital still camera and a wireless telephone contained in a single housing. The purpose of combining the digital still camera and the wireless telephone in a single housing is to conserve memory to store the digital electronic image signals. In other words, the digital electronic image signals are transmitted from the digital still camera to a computer at a remote site with a large memory.
Such digital electronic image signals otherwise have to be stored in a memory device included in the digital still camera itself. The devices disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application Nos. 6-133081 and 6-268582 transmit image information taken by a digital still camera to a computer at a remote site, but have disadvantages because they cannot receive image information from a remote site. In addition, the devices are expensive and inconvenient because they require a large memory and require a long time to transmit image data either in a regular format or in a compressed format.